Peter Eckel

Professional Biography

In his two-decade career as a scholar/practitioner, Peter Eckel has worked with hundreds of college, university, and state system administrators, faculty, and trustees on issues such as value-added governance, strategy, transformational change, student learning and educational quality, diversity and equity, academic leadership, presidential transitions, academic joint ventures/partnerships, internationalization, shared governance, institutional entrepreneurialism, and administrative teamwork.

Dr. Eckel joined Penn GSE as a Senior Fellow and Director of Leadership Programs with the Alliance for Higher Education and Democracy (Penn AHEAD). In 2023, he became the founding director of the executive-format Master’s Program in Global Higher Education Management, Penn’s first degree program created specifically for an international audience. It is a 100-percent online degree program, created to overcome the typical challenges of international collaboration and learning. Prior to joining Penn GSE, he served as Vice President for Programs and Research at the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges (AGB) and held several positions at the American Council on Education (ACE), including ending his tenure there as Director of the Center for Effective Leadership. He led AGB’s National Conference on Trusteeship and developed its offerings for international trustees and leaders. He created AGB’s presidential agenda to strengthen presidential leadership through effective governance, and led the design of AGB’s Institute for Public University Presidents and Board Leaders. At ACE, he was the founding director of numerous leadership programs, including the ACE Institute for New Chief Academic Officers, the Advancing to the Presidency workshop, the CAO-CBO Strategic Partnership workshop, and the ACE Presidential Roundtable Series.

He is the managing principal on a project developing a new research-intensive graduate school of education at Nazarbayev University in Kazakhstan. He has served as a consultant to the World Bank in Moldova and as part of an IREX effort with the University of Fallujah (Iraq). He has offered professional development programs to university leaders and trustees from India, Malaysia, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, and the UK and has served as a quality assurance consultant to universities in the UAE. He co-leads a project working on the future of learning, a joint collaborative between Penn GSE and Anant National University in India. He has been engaged with the Association of International University Presidents (AIUP) Seminar on Leadership Development for New Presidents and Emerging Leaders.

He additionally serves as trustee at the University of La Verne (CA), serving on the academic and student affairs, finance, enrollment, and governance committees. He writes frequently for Inside Higher Education on issues of governance and leadership. He has been quoted in leading media outlets such as the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, Bloomberg, Higher Education Dive, the Chronicle of Higher Education, and Inside Higher Education.